President Rodrigo Duterte is claiming that his alleged links to Davao Death Squad was made up by his politiko rivals for control of Davao City since the late 1980s.

Nearly a week after self-confessed hit man Edgar Matobato claimed that he was recruited by Duterte to form the core group of DDS killers, the President directly addressed the deaths by claiming these were just a compilation of random killings gathered by his rivals who have not been able dislodge him and his children from city hall.

“Maniwala kayo o hindi, depende na ‘yan sa inyo, actually it started with an election issue. So meron dito mga kalaban ko, kung may mamatay for whatever reason, kung sinong pumatay doesn’t really matter, kukunan ng picture. And then it was made into a folder, so many victims there, victims of crimes against persons, nasali na lahat doon,” said Duterte in a speech Tuesday night.

In his testimony at the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights last week, Matobato claimed that it was Duterte who ordered the killings in which the whistleblower took part in over 1,000 killings from 1988 to 2013.

But Duterte sarcastically said that if he was indeed responsible for the DDS killings, the body count should have been much higher.

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